Monthly Archives: August 2014

Bernstein and Gershwin at the Hollywood Bowl

Lovely concert of the LA Philharmonic doing songs of Bernstein and Gershwin. This hit such a sweet spot in my musical theatre girl heart. I am such a nerd for both of those composers. There was a great surprise performance by Alysha Umphress, who’s apparently going to be in a Broadway production of On the Town soon, of “I Can Cook, Too.” She was just great. What an excellent job. Watch out for her. I am so picky about musical theatre singers (well, probably just singers in general, too 😉 ) and she just does it right. SUCH great control. Anyway, yes, the rest of the music was lovely as well! Bramwell Tovey was incredibly charming and confident as the conductor. It felt amazing to be in the presence of someone with such immense respect for this music. Hearing “Rhapsody in Blue” performed live was definitely a bucket list thing for me and made me cry a lot with tears of overwhelm for the beauty and the drama of it all.

Bramwell Tovey conducting, from laphil.com

Orphan Black

I started watching this show in July and now am completely obsessed. Tatiana Maslany is the bomb dot com. Absolute baller hall of fame. Check it out on Amazon Prime immediately.

YES

Penelope

I wasn’t always sure about what was going on during Rogue Machine’s production of Penelope by Enda Walsh, but as usual the Rogues do not let me down when it comes to top notch actors. Hanging around theatres like this inspire me because it aligns with my career goal, which is to be a working actor in both theatre AND film/tv. Brian Letscher, who is on Scandal, was one of the main characters in this play, and in the talkback spoke on acting in both mediums and how he’s drawn to doing theatre even if he has a paying gig because it’s such fun work and so rewarding. Also, he tweeted me right back after I tweeted that he did a great job in the show, so… I have a crush on him now.

Ballerz

TPLLA Meeting

I am fortunate to be an Associate Member of the Theatre Producers League of Los Angeles, and to be a part of conversations about strengthening the Los Angeles theatre community, the theatre we make, and how we represent ourselves. In July we had a member meeting to discuss some committees and initiatives we want to work on and some standards and best practices we want to put into place for companies in Los Angeles. It was so exciting to be in a room with so many talented, conscientious, passionate theatre-makers. You can find out more about us here: www.tpl-la.com

Meeting in progress; photo credit: Greg Crafts

The Blind Date Project

Produced by Andrew Carlberg and starring Bojana Novakovic. This is (kind of) site-specific theatre where the show is in a bar and Bojana and a select, handsome, known-ish actor (different guy very show) meet to have an improvised blind date in front of the audience. The fact that Bojana creates a completely different character for every show is amazing. It’s very intense to watch (definitely exciting and sometimes stressful!) and is a WORKOUT for those actors. I would absolutely recommend that any and all LA actors go see this because it is such a lesson in listening, being in the moment, not getting in your own way, and basically everything you need to learn as an actor. They have shows most Wednesdays at the Three Clubs in Hollywood. More details about it on their Facebook page.